Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies in Papua New Guinea (PNG): Understanding the causes of poor health among pregnant women and infants

In resource-poor regions globally, pregnant women experience high rates of malaria, anemia, under-nutrition, reproductive tract infections, and other viral and bacterial infections. These can lead to morbidity and mortality in women, and in infants these factors can cause low birth weight (LBW) and premature delivery resulting in a significant number of infant deaths each year. 

Being born too small is the biggest risk factor for neonatal death, and also puts infants at risk of poor growth and development. Poor growth and development in young children, often referred to as stunting, is a major problem in many regions and is associated with 40% of deaths in young children as well and many chronic health problems. However, the roles of nutrition, anemia, malaria, and other infections on birth outcomes and child growth and development are not well understood which limits the development and implementation of effective strategies and interventions.

Burnet has a research program in rural PNG, called Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies, in partnership with the PNG Institute of Medical Research, East New Britain Provincial Government, University of PNG, the National Department of Health, and others. We have undertaken a longitudinal study of 700 pregnant women attending antenatal care and followed them through to delivery and followed the mothers and their infants for 12 months after delivery. Among these women, we are evaluating nutrition, including evaluating specific micronutrient deficiencies, metabolic status, anemia, and a range of infections including malaria.

The objective of this program is to determine the major preventable causes of poor maternal and infant health and causes of LBW and poor child growth to enable the development of future interventions to improve health.

This project would involve investigating some of these key health issues by combining laboratory-based assays of samples collected from mothers and infants with analysis of clinical data. A particular priority is to better understand and quantify poor nutrition and to identify the causes of anemia and poor child growth and development.